UCP and AHS desperately search for scapegoat to make motel medicine meltdown go away

Based on the dismal performance of Health Minister Adriana LaGrange and Alberta Health Services CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos at a news conference yesterday morning, it is clear the United Conservative Party Government and AHS are now in a desperate scramble to find someone to blame for the continuing motel health care meltdown. 

Ms. LaGrange and Ms. Mentzelopoulos had no explanation for how a partly paralyzed stroke patient came to be put in a taxicab after being discharged from an Edmonton hospital and driven 35 kilometres south to a Travelodge motel in Leduc that he believed was a continuing care facility able to look after his infirmities. 

Instead, he got a motel room too small for his wheelchair and fast food delivered by people working for a firm called Contentment Social Services who dropped by from time to time. 

In response to grilling by reporters, Ms. LaGrange and Ms. Mentzelopoulos pointed to the patient himself, the AHS social worker who helped him find care arrangements, Contentment Social Services, the list on which company appeared, and the unknown creator of the list of care providers as possible scapegoats.

It quickly became painfully obvious no one at the Health Ministry, the Social Services Ministry, the Mental Health and Addictions Ministry, or Alberta Health Services – least of all Ms. LaGrange and Ms. Mentzelopoulos – has a clue in a carload how the list was created, when it was created, who created it, or whether the care providers on it were vetted in any way. 

Also clear was that neither the government nor AHS is about to accept responsibility for what happened.

If you need continued care when you’re discharged from hospital, they both indicated, that’s strictly between you and whoever you hire with your own money to pay for it. (I use the term continued care because AHS insists such recently discharged patients do not require continuing care as defined by the health ministry’s current terminology.)

As Ms. Mentzelopoulos put it, “options are presented, and ultimately the individual has a conversation with the provider and looks at that themselves and makes their own decision.”

As for whether the providers on the list used by AHS were vetted, she responded to a reporter’s question by saying, “I don’t know what you mean by ‘vetted.’ There’s a lot of different providers of different types. There’s even market options.”

Anyway, Ms. Mentzelopoulos said, “it can be an iterative process in terms of what might be appropriate” – although what she had in mind by her repeated use of that mathematical term is far from clear. 

“We don’t endorse,” she insisted. “I think the subtext of this is that we somehow are endorsing. We do the work to find out what is available in the same way that an individual might do so if they were looking for care outside of the hospital.” (A Google search, I guess.) 

But as one reporter pointed out, if patients have received the information from AHS officials, they are likely to presume the care providers have been vetted and approved. 

Ms. Mentzelopoulos, a former deputy minister of finance, insisted that AHS had no relationship of any sort with Contentment Social Services – or for that matter with other care companies on the mysterious list used by AHS social workers to help discharged patients find appropriate housing.

Ms. LaGrange agreed, stating, “we have not accredited that agency.” However, she admitted that “there is an implication that because they’re on a list that we have actually approved them.”

“This particular agency is being inauthentic and not transparent with its clientele,” the minister said, promising to permanently remove it from the list of companies as well as to have someone go through the list to see if they can spot any additional questionable operators.

Asked who created this list, Ms. Mentzelopoulos replied: “There is an iterative process, so at different times there can be different options presented, and to the extent that that constitutes a list, I think it also, it changes, and evolves.”

Sensing trouble, Ms. LaGrange stepped in to assure Albertans the situation is in good hands. “We’ve now identified a problem that probably has existed for quite some time. But you know what? Now that we know there’s a problem, myself, Minister (Jason) Nixon, Minister (Dan) Williams, Athana, we’re all on it, and we’re gonna make sure that we clear this up.”

Are you reassured? 

While the news conference became a forum for reporters to ask questions about the Leduc Travelodge affair, it was called by Ms. LaGrange to brag about how many Albertans have attended the government’s health care engagement sessions, explain that introduction of the UCP’s new continuing-care agency will be delayed until fall, and introduce cabinet’s new Parliamentary Secretary. 

Earlier in the day Premier Danielle Smith announced that Livingstone-Macleod UCP MLA Chelsae Petrovic had been named as Parliamentary Secretary for Health Workforce Engagement. 

Ms. Petrovic, a former Licensed Practical Nurse and mayor of Claresholm, was endorsed by the leader of the UCP’s Take Back Alberta faction in the last provincial election as a “freedom fighter” and is best known for her view people who have heart attacks should be held responsible for their own illness. 

Ms. Petrovic said at the time her words were taken out of context. She refused to discuss the event at yesterday’s news conference. “I addressed that over a year ago and I stand by that statement,” was all she had to say.

Given Ms. Petrovic’s past remarks, NDP Health Critic Luanne Metz called the appointment “incredibly poor judgment,” adding, “the role of government should be to ensure people have public health care when and where they need it, not to judge people for their health conditions.”

Interestingly, despite the focus of the reporters’ questions at the newser, most news reports emphasized Ms. LaGrange’s not-very-earth-shaking announcements.